Unspecified section in generated index - items in that section are in Symbols list

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Alan Bowman

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Jul 19, 2025, 5:23:45 PMJul 19
to SKYIndexUsers
Hello all,
I'm working on an index in SKY 8 with a lot of computer command line commands that start with various symbols. A lot of these commands are ending up in an UNSPECIFIED section at the top of the generated index, even though the symbols are in Options > Sorting > Symbols. 

For example, in UNSPECIFIED: 
, (comma) (show entire file) command, 14
. (period) (leave insert mode) command, 13
+ (plus sign) (advance line) command, 12
= (equal sign) (print address) command, 13

But according to my Symbols list, all those characters are listed: 
_~@#$%^|=*+-<>{}[]().!?,;:`/\

According to the SKY manual, page 204, emphasis mine: 
The first section “Unspecified” is a predefined and non-editable section that collects all characters that you do not specify in any other section. You cannot edit the Section or Members, but you can elect to suppress printing of the section name in your generated index. 

If these characters are already in Symbols, where else should I be specifying them? I feel like I'm missing something obvious but I don't know what terms to search for. 

Thanks,
 Alan 


Anthony Fazio

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Jul 20, 2025, 11:29:27 AMJul 20
to SKYIndexUsers

Alan,

Are you wanting to sort these under the letter of the word? As in:

, (comma) (show entire file) command, 14 ß sorted under comma C
. (period) (leave insert mode) command, 13 ß sorted under period P

+ (plus sign) (advance line) command, 12 ß sorted under plus sign P
= (equal sign) (print address) command, 13 ß sorted under equal E

If so, then I would just put the word in front of the symbol and Hide the Text (Ctrl+T) to force sort it:

comma , (comma) (show entire file) command, 14 where the highlighted part is the hidden text. It should show up that way in your Index Pane.

If you are on page 204 of the Manual, you are in the Alphabet Groupings section. I don’t think changing anything in there will help you move the symbols in the sort. Instead, the above solution should move them to the appropriate letter (i.e. comma , (comma) will be under the C). If you just have the term , (comma) (show entire file) command, 14 without the hidden text, then it will sort at the top and under the Unspecified section no matter what you do. I think the suppressing option in the Define Alphabet Groups option just means that, if checked, the header ‘UNSPECIFIED’ will not be printed, but anything under it will still appear in the same place (with no section breaks). But again, you shouldn’t really need to mess with that at all.

I hope this helps (if I’m understanding you correctly that is).

 

Best regards,

Anthony

anthon...@afindexing.com

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Jul 20, 2025, 11:29:33 AMJul 20
to SKYIndexUsers

Alan,

Are you wanting to sort these under the letter of the word? As in:

, (comma) (show entire file) command, 14 ß sorted under comma C
. (period) (leave insert mode) command, 13 ß sorted under period P

+ (plus sign) (advance line) command, 12 ß sorted under plus sign P
= (equal sign) (print address) command, 13 ß sorted under equal E

If so, then I would just put the word in front of the symbol and Hide the Text (Ctrl+T) to force sort it:

comma , (comma) (show entire file) command, 14 where the highlighted part is the hidden text. It should show up that way in your Index Pane.

 

If you are on page 204 of the Manual, you are in the Alphabet Groupings section. I don’t think changing anything in there will help you move the symbols in the sort. Instead, the above solution should move them to the appropriate letter (i.e. comma , (comma) will be under the C). If you just have the term , (comma) (show entire file) command, 14 without the hidden text, then it will sort at the top and under the Unspecified section no matter what you do. I think the suppressing option in the Define Alphabet Groups option just means that, if checked, the header ‘UNSPECIFIED’ will not be printed, but anything under it will still appear in the same place (with no section breaks). But again, you shouldn’t really need to mess with that at all.

I hope this helps (if I’m understanding you correctly that is).

 

Best regards,

Anthony

 

 

Anthony Fazio, Indexer

AF Indexing | Sole Proprietor

www.afindexing.com

anthon...@afindexing.com

Littleton, CO

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Alan Bowman

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Jul 23, 2025, 5:00:22 PMJul 23
to Anthony Fazio, SKYIndexUsers
Anthony,
I found the answer with the help of Deborah Patton. The answer was actually one page up from where I was, on page 203. I had to add the symbols to the Symbols group under Define Sections to get them out of Unspecified. Now UNSPECIFIED doesn't print in the generated index, and all the symbol entries show up under Symbols, which is what I want. 

As for the other part, sorting the symbols by letter, what I'm trying to do is be lazy find a way to do this that doesn't involve me doing it entry by entry. However, I think that your suggestion, using Ctrl + T and hidden text, is going to be the actual solution. No rest for the wicked, and all that. 

Thank you for helping, I appreciate it. 

Alan   

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